Is anyone else tired of setting New Year’s resolutions that always seem to fail once that first rush of “it’s a new year, new me!” fades into the day-to-day? It can be hard to improve ourselves, and setting resolutions each year seems like a great way to go about creating goals… but is it really effective? I don’t know about you, but my resolutions all seem to disappear about halfway through the year.
For some, New Year’s resolutions just don’t work. That’s cool! There are other ways to build good habits and stick with them. Whether people aim to improve themselves on a daily basis or just don’t buy into the hype of yearly resolutions, if they like to go about things differently, we respect that. Celebrities aren’t immune — in fact, a number of them have said they don’t really do resolutions each year.
We rounded up quotes from celebrities who no longer practice this age-old ritual, and what they had to say about why may surprise you.
Oprah Winfrey
In 2017, Oprah Winfrey told Rachael Ray on The Rachael Ray Show, “For years, I would do these kind of resolutions like, ‘God, let me know love.’ I remember writing that in 2004. And then what you get hit with is everything that isn’t love to see if love will show up. So I just said, ‘I ain’t asking God for nothing else.’ Don’t ask for courage ’cause you’ll get a whole lot of things that will cause you to have to have courage! So I don’t make them anymore.”
Justin Hartley
The This Is Us star exclusively told SheKnows, “I don’t have [a New Year’s resolution]. I never make one because — and this is going to sound hokey, but I really do this and anyone who knows me will attest to this — I really do wake up every day and just try to treat every day like a clean slate. It’s kind of freeing actually,” he said. “I just pretend like the previous days didn’t happen. No, I’m kidding [laughs]. I wake up every day and I try to make that day as good as it can possibly be. Sometimes I’m really good at it, and sometimes I fail. But I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions. I applaud the people who do them and stick to them, but I don’t really do them.”
Mindy Kaling
This new mom(!) told InStyle in 2015 that she makes resolutions daily. “Every day is like a New Year’s resolution for me. I’m a little like my character where I’m like, ‘Ah, I’ve got to pull it together’ constantly. So, New Year’s is just the time when everyone else in the world is doing it too.”
Tiffani Thiessen
Tiffani Thiessen — actor on the new Netflix series Alexa & Katie (premiering in March 2018), host and lifestyle blogger — told SheKnows exclusively that she doesn’t believe in them.
“Why have a resolution on just one day out of the year? If you want something or need a change do it then.”
Octavia Spencer
Spencer told Bustle reporters in 2016 that she thinks “resolutions are a thing of the past. I think what people should do — for me, what I do, so that I can stick to it, is I think of one word that would sum up everything in my life, and every time I am faced with a decision, I apply that word. So, if it’s the year of ‘yes,’ if I would normally say ‘no,’ I weigh it, and I say ‘yes.'”
Gina Rodriguez
This Jane the Virgin star told InStyle in 2015 that yearly resolutions don’t work for her: “I do resolutions daily because I’m constantly fighting the demons. … I’m getting rid of the bad habits because I have them, like everybody else. I don’t wait ’til one day. I do that every day because it doesn’t just take one day for them to disappear. It takes so long for them to disappear. So they’re every day.”
Iliza Shlesinger
Iliza Shlesinger, comedian and author, just doesn’t get the point in waiting to start. “I don’t believe in NYE resolutions because I like to think that if I want to change something, I don’t wait for a specific day to make that change,” she told SheKnows.
Then again, there is one thing she wants to change that she’s OK waiting a couple of weeks to start on. “That being said, I think I’d like to lose more weight in the new year and I’ll start on Jan 1.”
Demi Lovato
In 2013, Lovato told ETCanada‘s Rick Campanelli, “I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions because I believe that every day you can have a resolution to start the next day off with.”
Katy Perry
In 2013, Perry told Now Magazine, “I don’t like to set a time frame of new beginnings. I just take my life one day at a time and continually try to evolve and become a better version of myself.” She said her only resolution that year was not to make any resolutions.
Tia Mowry
Mowry told Essence in 2016 she doesn’t want to wait for New Year’s Eve to set goals. “My New Year’s Resolution is to not wait for the New Year to start a resolution!”
Jamie Chung
Chung told InStyle that her 2015 resolution was not to have one. “Not to have a New Year’s resolution! I never stick with them. And if anything I live a pretty healthy life. I don’t withhold from carbs. If anything, to be more present. Because I’m always not enjoying the moment and that’s such an actor thing to say, but it’s true. Just enjoy, be grateful for what you have.”
Johnny Ray Gill
Gill told Essence in 2016 he prefers daily resolutions over yearly ones. He said, “I don’t usually partake in New Year’s resolution. I don’t believe one should wait for the new year to make a change. But in this new year, I will continue what Rilke would call the journey inside myself to see how deep the place is from which my life flows and hope that what commands me to be an artist spreads it’s [sic] roots into the very depths of my heart. In this next year I will continue to evolve personally and professionally, not shrink in the face of challenge, and be sure I smile and laugh more than frown and anger. That is my daily resolution.”
Kelly Rutherford
Rutherford told InStyle the pressure of resolutions is too much. “I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. It puts a lot of pressure on us. It’s not that I’m not goal-oriented — I used to do it. Listen to yourself instead of trying to meet all these expectations.”
La La Anthony
Anthony is dubious about the practice of setting resolutions each year. She told InStyle, “I don’t know how I feel about New Year’s resolutions. Everyone says they want to work out more, and then you go hard for a week and all of a sudden it’s back to normal. I don’t want to put that much more pressure on myself. I’ll focus on improving myself as a person.”
Malin Åkerman
Åkerman told InStyle in 2015 that she’s done with resolutions. “I don’t do resolutions. I have decided that I am, at the end of this year, instead of making resolutions, I am going to be thankful for certain things that I have done and accomplished this past year.”
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